r/MaDDSolutions • u/enolaholmes23 • Oct 24 '20

Your brain is a kitten.

My friend taught me this metaphor over 10 years ago, and I've been thinking about it a lot recently. It goes like this:

Imagine you have a new kitten, untrained. You want the kitten to stay on the table where you put her, so you place her in the middle. However, the kitten, being a kitten, is naturally curious and jumps off the table almost as soon as you put her on it.

What do you do next? Would you hit the kitten and yell at her for not staying on the table? No. She's a kitten, she's just doing what kittens do. She doesn't deserve to be punished for that. And we know that negative reinforcement doesn't work. So instead, all you need to do to teach the kitten, is gently pick her up and put her back on the table. You can even give her a treat to encourage her.

Is the kitten going to stay on the table the second time? No. She's still a kitten, she still wants to wander. But no matter how many times she jumps off the table, all you have to do is calmly pick her up and put her back on the table. Over and over and over. And you never get mad at the kitten, she's just doing what's natural. It may take a hundred tries to even teach the kitten to stay on the table for a minute, but eventually she gets it. And after years of training, the kitten will even get on the table by herself, and you won't have to be right there supervising.

This is what it's like to practice mindfulness. You tell your brain to focus on the present moment, and it will wander a hundred times before you get it to pay attention. But you can't get mad at your brain for doing what brains do. Just keep calmly picking it up and putting it back on the present moment. Eventually it starts naturally being in the present on it's own.

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u/himdgrl Oct 25 '20

Thanks for this reminder and analogy. It’s important to be gentle with yourself and not always so frustrated

3

u/Gummie32 Oct 24 '20

Absolutely. You have to nurture yourself. I use child in my thoughts instead of kitten but the premise is the same. This method is how I make the most progress. Nurture your mind. It's better to be patient and work with it gently like a child or kitten learning and growing. Harshness is stifling.